Binchois, Pour prison ne pour maladie

Pour prison ne pour maladie 3v · Binchois, Gilles

Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:

*Laborde ff. 69v-70 »Pour prison ne pour maladie« 3v · Edition · Facsimile

Other musical sources:

Escorial IV.a.24 ff. 39v-40 »Pour prison ne pour maladie« 3v · Facsimile (43)
Florence 2794 ff. 23v-24 »Pour prison ne pour maladie« 3v
Paris 15123 ff. 87v-88 »Pour presonnee pour maladie« 3v · Facsimile
Paris 4379 ff. 22v-23 »Pour prison ne pour maladie« 3v
Pavia 362 ff. 29v-30 »Pour prison ne pour maladie« 3v
Rome 1411 ff. 18v-19 »Pour prison ne pour maladie« 3v Bincoys · Facsimile

This page with editions as a PDF

Citations and laude, see Fallows 1999, pp. 321-322.

Editions: Droz 1927 no. 3 (Dijon), Gutiérrez-Denhoff 1988 no. 25 (Wolfenbüttel); Busnoys 2018 no. 50 (Laborde).

Text: Rondeau cinquain, perhaps by Alain Chartier; full text in Laborde; also in Escorial IV.a.24, Paris 4379 and Pavia 362; also found in Berlin 78.B.17 ff. 89v-90, ed.: Löpelmann 1923, p. 138; London 380 f. 239; Vienna 2619 f. 79; Jardin 1501 ff. 61-61v. After Laborde:

Pour prison ne pour maladie,
ne pour chouse que l’en me die
ne vous peut mon cuer oublier,
et si ne puis ailleurs penser,
tant ay de vous voir grant envie.

Ma vraye puissance et amie,
vous seulle me tenez en vie, 1)
et ne peut mon desir cesser

pour prison ne pour maladie.

Ne doubtez ja que vous oublye,
oncquez nulle, tant assovie, 2)
ne feust qui me sceut faire amer
que vous, belle et bonne sans per,
dont Amours point ne me deslie.

Pour prison ne pour maladie,
ne pour chouse que l’en me die
ne vous peut mon cuer oublier,
et si ne puis ailleurs penser,
tant ay de vous voir grant envie.

Not for prison, nor for illness,
nor for something one might tell me
can my heart forget you,
and I cannot think about others,
so much I do desire to see you.

My true mistress and friend,
you alone are keeping me alive,
and my desire shall not cease

for prison, nor for illness.

Never fear that I forget you,
there was never any other woman, however noble,
who knew to make me feel love
but you, fair, sweet lady without peer,
so Love will never release me.

Not for prison, nor for illness,
nor for something one might tell me
can my heart forget you,
and I cannot think about others,
so much I do desire to see you.

1) Line 7, “vous seulle je vous tiens envie” (error, meaning?); all other sources: “... me tenez en vie”
2) Line 11, “oncquez nul aultre tant assovie” (error, one syllable too many}

Evaluation of the sources:

This is an old song by Binchois, which was entered into the Laborde chansonnier by its main scribe near songs by Du Fay. It had appeared in black notation in the Italian MS from the late 1440s, Roma, Cittá del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Urb. lat. 1411, and in the early part of MS Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial, Biblioteca y Archivo de Musica, MS IV.a.24 (1450s). It is without any errors in the music, some ambiguity, however, appears in the wording of the poem (see above).

Laborde’s version differs from the other sources, earlier and later, by notating the two low voices with very few ligatures and by splitting up long note values into shorter notes. Thereby the underlay of the words in the low voices becomes much more evident to the performers of those parts – in its way it is a practical edition; one can compare the attached edition according to Laborde with the published editions based on Escolrial IV.a.24 (Binchois 1957, no. 35, or Hanen 1983, no. 22).

“Pour prison ne pour maladie” opens with a general pause consisting of a brevis and two semibreves. The introductory brevis bar was not meant to be performed in the realized rondeau form, and therefore it is not counted in the edition. It is the only song in which the Laborde scribe has retained the introductory general pause of a full brevis-bar – his version uses this special notation just like all other sources do. In two other instances he (or his exemplars) simply suppressed the brevis-rests, see »S’il advient que mon deuil me tue« by Michelet and Busnoys' »Quant ce viendra au droit destaindre«. This seem to be a device meant to insure absolute notational clarity in the cases where a song starts with an upbeat in all voices and the opening is homorhythmically designed (see further my note ‘On chansons starting with a general pause’).

Comments on text and music:

A love song where the meaning of the poem with its elegant return to the opening words of the refrain in the couplet invites a short refrain after the couplet – the affirmative cadence on the finalis after the refrain’s first line clearly supports this solution. It is set for a melodious upper voice (c'-d'') supported by two lower voices in the same range (c-f'), which often cross each other. Its triple time homophony with upbeat characterize the beginnings of every line – remark the “restart” of the second section (b. 16-17) and again before the final cadence (bb. 26-27) –, but double time phrasing enlivens the flow and displaces the middle cadence (bb. 11-15). Much of the song’s charm depends on a polyphony of stresses: when the melody stresses the first beat in the perfection, the lower voices often put a secondary stress on the second beat – and vice versa – until the very long last line where they are in complete accordance.

PWCH October 2022